I'm being a little devil :/
So last night as I was crying before God I came across Psalm 42. It felt like something I could have written at the very moment. David speaks of longing for God, thirsting for Him, having tears flood his eyes day and night while the enemy asks where God is, remembering how things used to be, how worship used to be so wonderful and joyful, wondering why His heart is so sad, yet still knowing that God is Savior. I could go on and on but then I'd basically just be writing the whole thing out. Long story short, it was exactly how I felt. So I just told God that it's gotten to the point where I almost dread having Bible time because the disappointment of not hearing Him speak to my heart is almost too much. I know that His Word never returns void. But lately it's just dry. I mean, occasionally what His word says leaps off the page, but mostly it's just words to me. I hate to even write that. It sounds so irreverent and... wrong. But it's what has been going on. It felt good to just be honest about it instead of wishing I wasn't as faithless as I am.So anyways this morning I was having my quiet time and I came across a section that spoke about how Jesus was tempted in every way that we are yet He was without sin. He had the opportunity to react just like I do in every situation, yet He never responded badly. He knows the feelings that I'm going through, He experienced them. So then that got me to thinking. What is a situation that Christ went through that's similar to mine? (Obviously it can only be somewhat similar, as He and I led quite different lives haha) And I immediately thought of the time He went through the desert for 40 days and nights and was tempted by the devil. And you know, I've never really thought about it before until today but what exactly was He doing out there for 40 days?? And what is the deeper meaning to the devil tempting Jesus besides the obvious wanting Him to sin or wanting Jesus to worship him. Now I was curious. Naturally, I did what I always do when I'm curious. I googled. And I found a golden nugget. I'll post the link at the bottom of the page. The website is dedicated to free Bible study lessons. Guess I hit the jackpot. So antyways, I clicked the link and lo and behold, the first question was "Why did the Holy Spirit lead Jesus into the Wilderness?" The most common answer and one that they had written was that He was led by the Holy Spirit to be tempted or tested by the devil. (Now, obviously my situation ain't as bad as Jesus's. Last time I checked, I'm not in the Israelite desert starving cause I haven't eaten in 40 days and coming face to face with the devil, but you get the picture. I feel as if this is a spiritual desert or wilderness time in my life.) The writers of this study compared the Israelites 40 year wilderness experience to that of Jesus's 40 day experience, which I thought was quite clever, especially in light of the points that they make. They quoted Deuteronomy 8:2-3: Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD". Ouch. When I read that it dawned on me, even though I've thought about this before, I really feel as if I'm going through this time because God wants to see if I'll be faithful to Him, even when His will isn't what I want it to be, even when I can't hear Him speaking to my heart or feel Him. He has caused me to (spiritually) hunger, and then fed me with just enough to get by until I hear from Him again. It doesn't really make a whole lotta sense to me, but He's God. His ways are not my ways, His thoughts are not my thoughts. Ya know, I could be way off theologically on all of this, but I just really think that this is what He's showing me.
So back to the lesson. The next point that the writers make is that in both the cases of Jesus and the Israelites, they had both "just experienced God's power and favor. Jesus experienced God's favor at His baptism and the Israelites had just seen the most powerful manifestation of God's power at work at the Red Sea." (Not to mention they had just been delivered from hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt). And right after all that happened, they end up in the wilderness! Once again, I feel like this exact same thing happened to me! Well, not exact, but you know what I mean. I experienced God in ways I couldn't even imagine last semester and I really knew that His favor was on me and I was growing and I was just so close to Him. I can't really even describe it. Over the Summer, I started to drift a little but anytime I would seriously focus and have quiet time with Him, I would hear Him speak. I looked forward to this Fall semester because I figured it would be the same as last Spring. I would have the time to focus on Him and He would really speak to me and I would grow and I would love Him more and me and Him would just be tight... But that's not what happened. I would seek Him and try to find Him, yet almost every time I tried, He was nowhere to be found. Now, I know the Bible says He will never leave me or forsake me. I get that. But as far as hearing His voice, having Him speak to my heart, having the knowledge of His love overwhelm me like it did before, well, none of it happened. And I kept waiting for things to change but nothing happened. I would wrack my brain, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, even convincing myself (for a day or so) that I wasn't doing anything wrong that this was just a hard time. But when the hard time didn't let up, I began to get frustrated. And frustration turned to anger. I was so mad at Him. I didn't want to be. I was so frustrated I didn't know how to react except to lash out in anger, accusing Him of not being who He said He is. I didn't understand why the Bible would say "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart" when I was seeking Him as hard as I knew how and I still couldn't find Him. So after sulking and being mad for a couple of days I finally just gave up. I didn't give up on Him, but I gave up on trying to make sense of any of it. I didn't know what to believe and I honestly didn't want to try to figure anything out anymore because all my attempts to do so had ended in disappointment. I realized that nothing I can do can make God answer me. I just have to wait for Him. So I've been waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Which brings me back to the lesson. Jesus's response and the Israelites response were very different. The Israelites complained and questioned God and it almost seems like they were mocking Him. Kind of like what I was doing... :( But Jesus, instead of questioning why the Holy Spirit had led Him into the wilderness, fasted and prayed. For 40 days! The lesson notes that fasting is helpful because it takes the emphasis off the flesh and focuses our mind on the spiritual. (Funny how off and on I had been convicted of getting on facebook waaay too much. Fast from Facebook started today.) I'm just going to paste the whole quote that they use on here because it's a good one.
We all go through wilderness experiences in our Christian walk. It can be very exhausting and draining. It deprives us of all the comforts that we may usually enjoy. It tests the deepest secrets and convictions of our heart to test what lies in our heart. We may have just gone through the greatest high of our walk with God. Next, we find ourselves in the spiritual turmoil or wilderness. During these times of testing, we need to put our complete trust in the Lord.
Ok so this is a really long blog post and I don't even think that I'm halfway through. So I'll stop for now and write more later!
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